Christian Wiklund dropped an e-mail to Marc Andreessen this past February, asking to meet with the Internet legend-turned-venture capitalist and pick his brain. The pair had met briefly in 2009, as Wiklund was still in the early stages of launching Skout, a mobile app for flirting and chatting, and he wanted to know what Andreessen thought of his progress.

Less than 20 minutes later, Andreessen got back to him. They quickly reconnected in person, and by the following Monday, Wiklund was meeting the general partners at his new best friend’s firm, Andreessen Horowitz, who effectively were pitching themselves to him. By Apr. 3 ­Andreessen had invested $22 million in Skout. “All my entrepreneur friends say, ‘Wow, you got Andreessen Horowitz,’” says Wiklund. “They’re the top firm.”

It’s not just the entrepreneurs who say that. Cozily ensconced in offices on Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park’s famed capital of venture capital, the firm has raised $2.7 billion since it was launched in 2009 and quickly grabbed a seat at the table in almost every new technology deal, with a portfolio of more than 90 companies that includes some of tech’s hottest names: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Airbnb, Foursquare. Its exits include Groupon, Zynga, Instagram and, most notably, Skype, the deal that helped put it on the map after its $50 million bet in 2009 quadrupled when Microsoft bought the company for $8.5 billion two years later. For its earliest investors, Andreessen Horowitz has already returned nearly all of the $300 million it first raised (most funds last seven to ten years)—and the rest is all profit from here.

Those kinds of numbers reflect why Marc Andreessen sits at No. 2 on our Midas List—with his partner, Ben Horowitz, at No. 21. When the pair started pitching their idea for a new venture capital firm in 2009, they told potential investors it would take ten years to become one of the top five firms in Silicon Valley.

They’ve done it in less than three.

“We are a partnership, but we operate like a company: quantitative, process-oriented, specialized experts in ­different areas, leverage through the professional staff,” ­Andreessen says, explaining their fast track to success. “This is actually a subtle but important thing.”

'Not Lobbing Money Over the Transom'

The most amazing part of Andreessen Horowitz’s rise is the background of the two founders. Neither of Silicon Valley’s hottest venture capitalists had ever been a VC before, though each has dabbled as an angel investor. Andreessen is a technology wunderkind who at 23 co-created Netscape—as well as the first consumer Web browser, Mosaic—in the 1990s. Now 40, he has major street cred with entrepreneurs, including Mark Zuckerberg, who asked him to join Facebook’s board. Horowitz, 45, an early Netscape product manager, went on to serve as CEO for Opsware, the company he cofounded with Andreessen.

Their detractors—and there are many—snicker that they dine out on Andreessen’s celebrity. That they overpay for deals. That it’s beginner’s luck.